Christmas Eve

He knew he was dreaming; there was a part of him that was separate, watching from the sidelines as the young boy sat beside the fireplace opening the present from his parents then looking up at them, his eyes wide with delight. He saw the young officer polishing the silver napkin rings at the table, his elderly parents sitting beside him, chatting about work and friends, delighted to have him…

The main control room, and yet it was not. So different, so very different. Oh it was SHADO, there was no questioning that, but these people were not his, this was not his Control room. His SHADO was not a jumble of burnt out and wrecked consoles, of exhausted and filthy staff clustered around the few remaining machines that still seemed to be active. Wires and cables looping from broken…

By the time she told him to slow down he was shaking with cold and heat and fear. He pulled the car over to the side of the road, switching on the hazard lights. They had not seen one other vehicle on the roads since leaving… leaving… He opened the door, desperate to get out, tangling his arm in the seat belt for a frantic moment. He made it to…

The house looked strangely familiar, the white gate in the fence giving a familiar and welcoming creak as he pushed it open, the path curving around the bole of a heavy tree. He stopped, fearful, his heart pounding now, not from exertion, but dread. ‘Come with me.’ She was there beside him, her fingers on his elbow, guiding him, gentle hands leading him towards the windows with their bright lights…

A UFO story by Lightcudder Chapter 1 The roads were busy with revellers heading into town to celebrate, noisy groups of party-goers filling the evening with their shrieks of laughter and the once pristine snow covering the carpark when he arrived three days ago was now little more than a thin covering of slush spattering the windscreen with clods of brown half-rotted ice. Straker flicked the radio on, more in…